Wild Cranberry Sauce

For years, cranberries had been something of a Holy Grail for me. They only live in the North Country, and then only in certain boggy places. Places that are closely guarded. The location of a good cranberry bog is secret kept as secret as the location of a good morel spot, or a duck hunting honey hole in the marsh. You just don’t ask someone where they get their cranberries.

So for years I’d blundered around in vain. Until one fall when I was in Massachusetts visiting my family. My friend Nate lives there, too, and he is almost as into hunting, fishing and foraging as I am. When I told him I’d be coming, he casually mentioned something about picking cranberries. Wait, what? Really?! Yeah, Nate said. He’d spotted some around Cape Ann.

We spent some time fishing for mackerel in a steady drizzle, but no fish were biting so we scotched that idea pretty quick. “Let’s see if those cranberries are still around,” Nate said. I nonchalantly agreed, but inside I was squealing like a little girl. But as we drove toward the secret spot, The Negative crept in: We’ll get there and the berries will have gone by. Or someone else will have picked them. Or they won’t be ripe yet.

Nate started looking around in some pines and walked down into a little depression among them. “Here they are!” I looked down at the first cranberry bushes I’d ever laid eyes on.

Photo by Hank Shaw

I almost danced a jig. Almost. It looked like mice had decorated the place for Christmas. Nate and I dropped to the ground and began picking. And picking. And picking. Our backs were sore by the time we’d gathered our fill — each of us had filled a gallon bag. A gallon bag full of ruby jewels! I knew I was being irrationally exuberant, and I still am. Sue me. I love cranberries.

Cranberries, if you hadn’t noticed, will keep for a couple months in the fridge — and will store almost forever in the freezer. This is good, because I picked them in October but I did not want to use them until Christmas. Normally I would have made cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving, but we didn’t cook this year. So the magic berries will not make their debut until Christmas Dinner.

Photo by Holly A. Heyser

Cranberry sauce is about as American as it gets, although it is believed that our love of cranberry sauce owes its origin not so much to the New England Indians the Pilgrims first met — the Wampanoag did use cranberries, but mostly for pemmican — but rather to Scandinavia and Germany, where a similar sweet-tart sauce is made with cranberry’s little cousin, the lingonberry. The cranberries we picked are Vaccinium macrocarpon, while the lingonberry is Vaccinium vitis-idaea.

No one has yet placed the true first reference to cranberry sauce in American cookery; the earliest recorded culinary use of cranberries is in 1672, where they are baked in a tart. The word “cranberry” itself is thought to be American in origin, however, and it dates from the 1600s. The earliest reference to the sauce that I could document comes from an 1808 memoir of an unnamed traveling Frenchman, reprinted in Boston under the title “Miscellanies” in 1821:

Preparing them for the table is very easily done the berries are stewed slowly with nearly their weight of sugar for about an hour and served on the table cold… It is eaten with almost every species of roasted meat particularly the white meats: turkies, partridges &c. Some even eat it with boiled fish and I knew one person, otherwise a very worthy man, who eat it with lobsters for supper.

There are as many versions of cranberry sauce as there are cooks. All involve some sort of sweetener, as cranberries are unbearably tart without it. Most recipes include “warm” spices such as cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and ginger, and oranges and other citrus made appearances often, too. Here is my recipe, but feel free to modify it as you will.

Wild Cranberry Sauce

I had access to wild cranberries, so I used them. But honestly, they are not very different from the kind you buy in the store. Cultivated cranberries are a little larger than wild, but they are similarly tart. You can also skip the maple syrup and use sugar, but if you do, you will need to add a full cup of water. I like the maple syrup because it is a very American sweetener. Honey is another good alternative. Once you make this recipe, it will keep in the fridge for weeks, if not months. Cranberries contain a natural preservative that helps them stay fresh for long periods in the cold. Use it for any wild game meat, or with pork, turkey or chicken.

Prep Time10mins

Cook Time20mins

Total Time30mins

Course: Condiment

Cuisine: American

Servings: 3cups

Author: Hank Shaw

Ingredients

Instructions

Combine all the ingredients in a heavy pot and turn the heat to medium. Bring everything to a boil, then simmer gently until all the cranberries have burst and the liquid has reduced somewhat, about 20 minutes. Remove the orange zest and chill the sauce. It should thicken dramatically once it's cold. Serve chilled or at room temperature.

Hank Shaw

Hey there. Welcome to Hunter Angler Gardener Cook, the internet's largest source of recipes and know-how for wild foods. I am a chef, author, and yes, hunter, angler, gardener, forager and cook. Follow me on Instagram and on Facebook.

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Comments

Thank you for this recipe. It checks all the boxes. A little background…. My husband’s family were maple syrup producers in rural New Brunswick, Canada…horse and buggy, wild maple trees and requisite log cabin sugery in the woods, so maple syrup is a staple in our house. In summers, I travel back to the Pine lands of Saskatchewan and pick wild berries with my elderly father. He has been a forager for most of his 84 years. I can barely keep up to him. This summer was a bumper crop and after a solid morning we each came away with about a gallon each. I can’t wait to share these! Delicious!

Just made this tonight with cranberries my husband and son foraged. It’s so good! Even without the orange peel which I didn’t have. Made it for an harvest meal we’re having with friends tomorrow and I tested it on some homemade soy crackers with wild turkey meat and homemade goat cheese. Fantastic! Thanks for this. Great recipe!

This is a fantastic recipe! We have low bush cranberries coming out of our ears up here in Alaska (definitely not complaining). I made this today for Thanksgiving dinner and my partner Joel licked the serving dish clean. Thanks so much for sharing.

Whereabouts on the north shore do you live? I am in Gloucester. While I can’t give away the spot where we picked these cranberries, I’ve recently learned of a bigger patch over in Rockport. It’ll have to wait till fall, but perhaps that is a spot we could search out and then pick till our heart’s content.

So, do you want to give some more details on where you found those? (I know I’m breaking your rule on asking about cranberry spots…) I live in the North Shore and would love to figure out some cranberry locations this year. The Trustees of Reservations are giving a talk and taking people picking on the Crane Estate next month but, alas, I can’t make it. I’ll keep my eyes peeled and eventually, I’ll know some cranberry spots of my own. Looking forward to learning more from the blog.

Here in Mexico fresh cranberries are hard to find. I saw canned sauce at autum and winter in Walmart last year or the year before, but seems it didn´t sell so well, because I don´t see them this year. Dried cranberries, juice and beverages are another story. They are becoming pretty common.

So, can dried cranberries be used to make sauce? Are they worth the try? Any adjustments?